Go Bob!

Submitted by Fred Baehr (United States), May 18, 2012 at 00:32

I have been reading Spencer for a few years. I have also read from Ibn Warraq and Karen Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong is a brilliant scholar and so facile a writer that she carries one along with her. But her little book "Muhammed, A Prophet For Our Times" was a terrible disappointment. She did not approach Islam as she had Christianity or Judaism with her insightful scepticism. Ibn Warraq is on a kind of mission, but he is sincere and another brilliant scholar. I have never regarded Spencer as being quite of their caliber and from what I have seen of his forays into academia, he seems to want to goad his audiences with remarks aimed at their apathy, laziness, and willful stupidity, when he could say the same things in a much less insulting manner. Never the less I am going to buy and read his new book. He is well foot noted and his arguments are put in a straight forward style. But I'm going to buy it because you noted that he is going to make it available to the Muslim readers around the world in their own languages gratis via internet. If he really does that then he truly believes in the value of his work and he will do a great thing for scholarship and for Islam.

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